


All Too Human

by rasalcool



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Extended Universe, Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Hiatus, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Identity Porn, M/M, On Hiatus, shit's gonna get wild so buckle your seatbelts babes, some discussion of the nature of humanity forthcoming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22433914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rasalcool/pseuds/rasalcool
Summary: Clark Kent has a mystery to solve. Bruce Wayne, the world's greatest detective, is the mystery. Funny how that works out. HIATUS
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Lois Lane/Vicki Vale
Comments: 19
Kudos: 79





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is how bvs would have gone if i had been in charge. i Should have been in charge, so what if i was 16 when it came out  
> comments + concrit welcome and appreciated!!  
> this is NOT abandoned but updates WILL be sporadic i am VERY sorry (4/8/20)

Clark crosses and uncrosses his ankles, squirming under the weight of steely eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. The receptionist in Wayne Enterprises' lobby is not the leggy blonde he'd (admittedly, judgmentally) imagined; she has iron-gray hair, sensible shoes, and a cardigan Cat Grant might have called frumpy. The severe line of her mouth stymies any attempt to imagine foppish playboy Brucie charming her with a compliment or a touch or a roguish wink.

The clock on her desk ticks away in the background-- Clark arrived at three-forty-five for a four-o'clock interview, but the woman offers no apology as the minute hand passes from nine to twelve to three with no sign of her erstwhile employer. She can see, Clark panics. She can sense Clark's rookie status, can tell this is his first high-profile interview, spies the scuffs in his shoes and the way his father's old suit stretches and sags around an unfamiliar wearer and the frenetic, nervous tapping of his fingers against his notebook. She's not acknowledging him because she's judged him unworthy of acknowledgement. He can't do this. She thinks he's ridiculous, and if she thinks he's ridiculous so will Mr. Wayne. He's just going to have to crawl back to Perry and explain that he couldn't interview Mr. Wayne, he's sorry, but the receptionist looked at him funny and he had to leave immediately.

It sounds ridiculous even in his mind, and he shakes his head, steeling his nerves, straightening his back. Celebrity or not, Brucie Wayne can't be that scary. And Clark is bulletproof-- he can take whatever the man has to throw at him.

A cough interrupts his self-reassurance, and Clark glances up at the receptionist again to find her eyes narrow and unimpressed. “Mr. Wayne is ready for you now,” she says, and-- perhaps pitying him-- leans over the desk. “He doesn't bite, kid. You'll be fine.”

Clark nods, eyes wide-- her words don't settle his stomach much. He hadn't even considered the possibility that Bruce Wayne might try to bite him. What is he going to do if Bruce Wayne tries to bite him? He thanks her, since he doesn't want to be rude, and starts towards the elevator. 

His stomach quivers with nerves the whole way up, but eventually after what seems like an eternity and a half the elevator gives a cheerful ding and the doors slide obligingly, noiselessly open. Relieved-- the elevator car had started to feel unsettlingly like a coffin sixteen floors ago-- Clark lurches out, only to collide headlong with roughly six and a half feet of muscle. 

Bruce Wayne's hands, Clark notes, are not those of an aristocrat. Long, sensitive fingers, certainly, and finely-manicured nails-- but they are callused and scarred, coarse to the touch and stained with bruises. One finger is crooked, as though it had broken and healed wrong. They stand in sharp contrast to Clark’s own square digits and broad palms, perfect and unmarred in spite of years of character-building. For a bizarre moment Clark can’t help but think that they have each other’s hands. There’s no reason for a farm boy to have hands like his, no reason for a wealthy socialite to have hands like Bruce Wayne’s.

They’re both pretending to be something they’re not, Clark thinks-- or, at least he would, if not for those eyes. He’d call them doe eyes if he were more audacious. They are wide, framed by long lashes, and so ice-blue they are almost gray, without the slightest imperfection of color. Eyes like that, Clark thinks, are incapable of deception. If there were anything to Bruce Wayne beyond what he seems to be, he could read it in those eyes, but there is nothing there. A trace of childlike faith, maybe, a dash of hope. Clark can’t catch his eye for long enough to see.

A glance down reveals that he is wearing the most perfectly-polished pair of dress shoes Clark has ever seen.

Ma always said, years ago when Clark was just starting to date, that a man's eyes, hands, and shoes tell you the most about him. She never addressed the possibility that they would all say different things.The hands speak of hard labor, the eyes of naive idealism, and the shoes of worldly material excess. Clark doesn't know what to think.

(Clark notices other things, too-- the pronounced, kissable cupid's bow; the fall of a tailored suit jacket over an athletic torso; a mellifluous, deep voice speaking to him in tones like caresses-- but these he does not even name to himself. Not out of fear or disgust, but because he refuses to be taken in by the storebought sex appeal of someone like Bruce Wayne.)

He'd noticed the voice for a reason.

He'd noticed the voice because Bruce Wayne is talking to him. "--normally I'd complain, but for a face like yours I'll make an exception," he's saying. Clark wants to ask what he'd complain about, but he suddenly realizes that he's holding the man. His hands are flat against what is clearly a very toned back. He must have knocked him over and caught him reflexively.

"I'm so sorry," he squeaks, careful to help Mr. Wayne back to his feet before jumping away. "Are you all right?"

"All the better for meeting you, gorgeous," Wayne says. It should sound corny but that voice is just too sensuous and something in the single-minded focus of his gaze makes Clark feel like he's the only other person in the world.

He takes a moment to get himself together, but Wayne pipes up again just as soon as Clark opens his mouth. “I’m afraid I only came out here to tell you that I can’t honor my date with you after all,” he says. “Something’s come up. Would you be opposed to coming back this evening?”

Clark blinks. It’s _rude_ , he should be _angry_ , that Bruce Wayne kept him waiting in the lobby for twenty minutes only to stand him up altogether. He should take the man to task, billionaire or not-- but the thought makes him want to vomit with nerves. “I-- no, Mr. Wayne,” he chokes. “Of course not.” 

“Thataboy.” Wayne grins, claps Clark’s shoulder and bundles him back into the elevator. There’s tightness around his eyes and mouth that warns Clark not to argue-- he doesn’t want to stress the man, and anyway he’s mild-mannered-reporter-Clark-Kent right now-- but he still simmers about it all the way back down to the lobby. Surely, he thinks, an e-mail would have sufficed. Surely he didn’t have to come all the way out to Gotham City only to be told to come back later. How the world can continue when it’s so full of such inconsideration he really doesn’t know.

* * *

He senses something off as soon as he emerges back into the lobby. There’s a tension in the air, buzzing against his eardrums and the back of his throat, the way there would be before a storm back home. 

He makes his way towards the front door, intent on finding some lunch. Sounds close in around him, the way they always do when he's nervous; he senses the slightest of brushes, the fall of dust on the floor, every breath and heartbeat and swallow of every person within a few miles. Through his deep breaths and calming mental exercises it takes him a moment to realize he's not imagining the way the ground shifts under his feet, or the strange thickness of the air sticking in his lungs. Alarms shriek in the background-- Clark whirls around, at pains to understand what's happened, but it's too much. 

“Morning, kiddies!” someone shouts behind him. "You're going to see some fireworks today! It's going to be a real _gas_!" He whirls around, scanning the room only to meet with a field of green fading into gray. He thinks he's fainted for a moment, until he realizes that in spite of his heart thundering against his teeth he's still conscious. No, the room is just full of gas, and smoke, and the creak and clatter of metal. By the time he realizes that now is the worst possible time for a panic attack there is already a heavy hand on his shoulder and another guiding his to cover his nose and mouth. 

But maybe he's already in the throes of it, because he squints through the smoke only to decide that he cannot be seeing what he thinks he's seeing. The image shimmers, distorted by the smoke around it, but it's like nothing Clark has ever seen before. A monster-- a demon-- some kind of twisted inhuman thing he can't parse or interpret. “What--” he tries to croak, but even if not for the hand over his mouth, his voice won't work. He glimpses horns, blank white eyes.

“The door is straight ahead of you,” it snarls, voice the stuff of nightmares, and shoves him. He forgets to let it move him, but it doesn't seem to notice. “Run. Don't stop until you're out.” And then it vanishes.

Obviously Clark is not going to run. That he doesn't even have to think about. But he doesn't know what he will do-- it's chaos around him, the people lingering in the lobby suddenly transformed into a crowd of panicking, fleeing liabilities, a head-splitting cackle echoing off wood paneling and polished steel. He has to do something, chase after that thing, capture it-- but there's too much happening, and he can't locate it. By the time he's focused enough to see through the smoke, cut through the cacophony, the situation has changed and he has to refocus somewhere else. 

He can just spot the shadow, through the gas and smoke and chaos, moving like nothing he's ever seen before. Everyone is gone-- only the cackle remains, and that demonic growl, and Clark can't tell whether they're working together or who's responsible. The creature corrals everyone toward the front exit-- Clark can see police hovering nervously outside, sirens screaming, red and blue lights flashing. Once they bystanders are clear it rounds on the source of the cackling, throwing out its arms. To Clark's amazement, black bolts seem to come out of its claws, spinning toward a figure in purple and knocking him down.

He takes a step-- they're together now, black shadow circling around some kind of clown-- and he can hear them talking. The clown's voice, high pitched and shaking with giggles, slams into his skull like an axe.

"You didn't really think I'd let you have it that easy, did you?" He jackknifes sharply with his amusement, a stark contrast to the stern and forbidding creature opposite him. "Batsy, baby, Batcakes, you don't know me at all, do you? I'm disappointed."

"Where is it?" That growl again. Clark shifts closer, hovering half an inch in the air so he doesn't tip either of them off. 

The question sends the clown into another fit of laughter. "Where is it?! That's for me to know and you to find out, Bats! Where is it." He shakes his head, green curls bouncing. "Gosh, for such a serious guy you've really got jokes."

Bats. Clark knows bats-- they had them in the barn, back home. Cute, fuzzy things. The thing the clown is talking to is anything but cute and fuzzy. It carries itself like a predator, with inhuman grace and speed and economy of motion, every step calculated and perfect. It can't hurt him-- it doesn't even know he's there-- but he's still frightened.

Frightened, though not too much to realize that there's something wrong. The gas and smoke choking the air is starting to fade, but the bat doesn't seem satisfied. A growl of frustration fills the room. It kicks the clown flat-- the clown just cackles, delighted-- and disappears, Clark can't see where. Damn this city and all its lead piping.

Clark has heard of the bat haunting Gotham. But the Gazette never prints photographs, or specifics. The jury seems to be out, among Gothamites, as to whether this creature means good or ill-- being Gothamites they lean towards skepticism and fear, and Clark understands why now that he's seen it in action, but all it's done is try to help him flee. He guesses it's responsible for everyone else in the room managing to evacuate, too, in spite of the chaos. Frightening, maybe, but he's willing to trust it for now.

While there's nobody around to see it-- only the clown remains, immobilized near the front doors, but Clark doubts he's paying much attention-- he uses his super-breath to inhale all the gas out of the air and pressurize it into a small pellet. This he spits out and, for lack of anything else to do with it, dumps into his water bottle to dispose of later. It's not much-- the Bat seems to have captured the perpetrator and gone off to deal with the crime before Clark had even sorted himself out-- but he feels compelled to help somehow.

He doesn't know how, is the thing. The Bat seems to have everything handled. 

* * *

It could be seconds, or minutes, or days (it’s probably not days) but eventually the Bat returns, a cartoonishly large bomb tucked under its arm, depositing it unceremoniously on the clown's chest and tossing the whole assembly out to the police before hurriedly disappearing again. This time, though, Clark stands ready-- he may not be able to see where the Bat disappears, thanks to all the lead piping and paint, but he can hear its footsteps, its heavy breathing, its heartbeat-- it is making its way up, probably to the roof, so Clark lunges for the stairs and propels himself up after it, brushing past confused and fleeing people hurrying in the other direction. He hesitates to use his super-speed, but he can feel the importance of this singing through his body. It's not much, but he is careful to keep just ahead of the Bat, so that when it emerges out onto the roof of the Tower he can grab a handful of its cape and stop it in its tracks.

It looks back at him, white eyes wide and startled. So close, no longer panicking and without the smoke distorting the Bat's image, Clark can see that they are actually backlit lenses, that the horns are actually ears. He has to stop himself from peeking through what he can see now is an armored mask; if the Bat covers its face, surely it does so for a reason.

It tries to pull out of his grip. This is futile, though-- the leathery material doesn't even budge-- and a tinge of confused displeasure tightens the corners of the exposed, human mouth. 

Can the Bat possibly just be a man? He can hear a heartbeat, can hear blood flowing and synapses firing-- and yet the way it-- he?-- had moved earlier had been so fluid, so impossibly and inhumanly efficient. 

"I wouldn’t do that,” he says, watching muscles flex and extend in preparation to punch him in the face. The Bat does it anyway. He dodges, much to its surprise; it takes super-speed, much to his own. “I-- what are you?”

“I am vengeance,” the Bat says, absurdly, and yanks at its cape again. Clark holds on effortlessly. “Let go of me. Now.”

"Please," Clark says. "Please tell me." 

"How did you get up here? I evacuated you." Had the Bat learned his face? How had it had time? "How did you know--" 

"What just happened?"

Something in his face, or his voice, must strike a chord-- Clark can see when the Bat softens and takes pity on him. “The Joker planted a bomb in the vents," it says. "It would have filled the whole building with gas and possibly collapsed it. I disabled it and left him for the police."

"They're saying you're a criminal," Clark says-- not in objection, but confusion. "You're a hero."

The Bat actually winces. "Let go of me."

Clark hadn't realized he was still holding onto his handful of cape. He lets go, cautious, and steps back, slowly. "They're saying you're not human." 

"They're right." But Clark can hear the slight tremor of confusion in its voice. 

"You are. I didn't realize." 

The Bat is silent, staring back at him from behind those white lenses. He wonders what color its eyes are. He could look, but he doesn't dare-- it would know, he's convinced, and then it would never answer all his questions.

And he has so many questions. "Why do you do this?" Clark has to know. "S-save people."

He knows why before the Bat can speak up. "Someone has to," it says, in that rasping growl. 

"The police," Clark says, and now he is objecting. "Fire department. Gotham has emergency services." A city like this one can't need a man running around saving people. It can't. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of Clark's stomach. He wonders if this is nausea, or vertigo. There are a whole range of unpleasant human sensations he's never felt before, but he's certain that if anyone could make him seem human it's the Bat. 

The Bat has certainty and conviction where Clark has none. "Not enough."

“It's not fair,” Clark insists, feeling like a child. “It's not fair for you to have to--” It's déja vu, he realizes midsentence. He has had this very conversation. In the fields with his father, on house calls with his mother, over the dinner table with both of them, only now he's taking their side. He lost the argument then and he's going to lose it now. The Bat is right-- he had been right-- Clark can't live the way he's been living and pretend it's enough, anymore.

Not when he knows there's a human-- a normal, squishy, breakable human-- doing what he hasn't.

He sucks in a deep breath, closes his eyes, and forces himself to calm down. A million questions are bouncing around the inside of his skull, and he can't give voice to them with his heart in his mouth like this. But when he looks up again, hopeful and fearful all at once, the Bat is vanished.

* * *

He spies a familiar face once he makes it back to the ground floor, and latches onto it like a lifeline. After that, he needs to feel normal. “Vicki!"

A bright smile instantly appears on her face, and she hurries over to greet him. "Kent! What are you doing here? I thought you were traveling."

"No, no, I'm with the Planet now--" he pauses a moment, to return her impressed grin. He's not sure how he managed it either. "I was here for an interview, but it was--" he pauses again, gesturing around at the chaos. "Interrupted."

"Tell me about it. By the time I got here it was over, and nobody's calm enough to give me any details." She rolls her eyes-- under that carefully-coiffed packaging, Clark remembers, hides a surprisingly tough customer, and she's never been the most patient of people. "You wouldn't happen to have seen anything, would you?"

Clark considers-- but it's not like the Planet would bother covering a minor attack with no casualties and no wider implications. She can't scoop him on this, so he nods. "What do you want to know?”

“There was an escape from Arkham earlier,” she tells him. Clark is struck with sudden clarity. That must be why Mr. Wayne couldn’t keep their engagement-- the Wayne Foundation is heavily involved with Arkham Asylum’s funding and operation, an escape would surely throw a wrench into any of its chairman’s plans. “Did you see anything?” she wants to know. “Anything weird, any crazies running around with weird plans.”

“There was a clown?"

Vicki winces. "The Joker. Whole lot of crazy, wrapped in sadism, wrapped in a clown suit. Sorry your introduction to our city was so shitty," she adds, nudging him. "I'll make it up to you next time you cross the bay. What did he do?"

"I don't know, I was a little discombobulated," he admits, and she sucks her teeth at him. "There was gas--"

"Joker toxin," she supplies. "Makes you--" she circles one finger around her temple.

"--and then this, uh, kind of demonic-looking--" he fumbles, trying to think of a way to put all his feelings about the Bat into words, and doesn't notice the way her eyes widen and her face lights up until she's digging her long, scarlet fingernails into his arm. He doesn't bother wincing-- she wouldn't notice or care.

"You saw the Batman?" 

"He helped me evacuate," he tells her, unsure why she's so interested. She pumps her fist and-- somehow, in spite of her spike heels-- jumps up and down. "What?"

"My editor keeps telling me and telling me and telling me to drop the story." She brushes a lock of scarlet hair out of her face to stare into his eyes. “But I just can’t.”

He nods-- he knows that feeling. 

"It’s slow going, but you, Kent, you beautiful bastard, you’ve just given me another piece of evidence," she continues, jubilance out of place in a streetside full of ambulances and police and stalled traffic. A few irritated glares are enough to quiet her down, but not to dampen her spirits. "I just _knew_ I’d get something out of today!"

"They're saying he's a criminal," he points out-- not with any heat behind it, not after the conversation he's just had with the Bat, but vigilantism is still a crime, hero or no. “What’s your fascination?” His spirits sink slightly, even before she has the time to answer-- this conversation, he can tell, is increasingly unlikely to make him feel normal again.

"If saving people is criminal then something's wrong with this city," she retorts, and Clark is about to tell her there's plenty wrong with Gotham until he realizes that that's her point. 

"So you're... some kind of Bat PR specialist?"

"He saved my life," she insists, crossing her arms. "He deserves something in return, and I can't exactly dress up as a lady Bat and fight crime with him, can I?"

"Might break one of those talons," Clark suggests, and goes so far as to try for a smile. It seems to work; she swats him, but she’s laughing.

"I'm serious. I’ve been following him, Kent.” She leans in, so excited that he can’t help mirroring her posture. “The pols and the corporate slimeballs don’t like him, that’s why everyone’s so freaked,” she says, conspiratorially. “They’ve been whining about him since the beginning, but I have a source who says it’s because he smoke-bombed the mayor’s house in the middle of a meeting of fat cats and told ‘em their days were numbered.”

“What does that mean?” says Clark, whose upbringing in middle America has taught him to be suspicious of that kind of demagoguery. 

“It _means_ a whole string of high-profile arrests for corruption, racketeering, trafficking, you name it.” She shoves her tape recorder into his hands, fumbling in her purse for her notebook. “He tracks down the evidence and then delivers the perps right to the Gotham PD. You don’t hear about it ‘cause the ones he hasn’t gotten to yet keep it quiet.”

“So how do you know all this?” he wants to know, crossing his arms. He tries to look skeptical, like a good journalist, but really he’s desperate for any little scrap of information she can provide. She gives him a knowing glance out of the corner of her eye.

“I ask the right people,” she says. He’d known she wouldn’t reveal her tricks, but he’d thought it was worth a try. He gets better than tricks, though, when she actually shoves her notebook into his hands. “I’ve been working on this for months now. The guy’s elusive and hard to track down. This is the first piece of new evidence I’ve been able to track down since last week.”

For months of work, the notebook is pretty slim-- he commits as much of it to memory as he can as he skims it over, but ultimately only retains a few keywords for later research. He wants to be incredulous that her editor has let her stick with it that long, but at the same time, he understands that she couldn’t have been deterred. He’s still reeling from a few minutes’ worth of the Bat’s inexplicable charisma on the rooftop-- he can’t imagine what state he’d be in if he’d been looking for as long as Vicki had. “I wish I had your patience.”

“You wish you had my everything,” she retorts, with a brilliant grin. “Listen, I’ve wasted enough time with you already. I’m gonna try to get some more info before people disperse, but you should give me a call, all right?”

“I will,” he promises, and means it. Because he likes her, but also because he knows he’ll need to pick her brain again, if he’s going to find some answers about this Bat.

She’s already walking away, but she half-turns to blow him a kiss before disappearing into the crowd. He’s left, yet again, alone to drown in his ocean of questions.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love you guys. bear with me on the pacing a lil bit things are gonna pick up soon

Bruce is the closest he ever gets to happy this way.

There are a few things missing, of course, since it’s the middle of the day. Robin (he hopes) is still at school. The sky above is a pallid, drizzly blue-gray, still a few hours short of the twinkling black that makes Bruce feel most at home. The shadows are too short yet for lurking and creeping. 

But Bruce’s cowl covers his face, his cape weighs behind him like a pair of wings, and there is the scent of crisis in the air. That’s all he needs. It’s just him and the city, king and kingdom, bat and cave.

Out here it isn’t necessary to shake hands with the Riddler, or make small talk with Firefly. The Scarecrow is not going to hold a charity donation hostage against his being sufficiently charming. All the world needs from Batman is what he’s capable of; they need him to keep them safe, to keep crime down, to watch over the city from on high and be their symbol against the evil that threatens them. And Bruce can do that. He must.

Controlled falling, Bruce knows, is the closest he will ever get to flight; he doesn’t see much difference. He gets the wind in his face either way, and it flutters through his cape; he gets the weightlessness and the pull in his gut; he gets, though he’d never admit it, the rush of hanging in the air above millions of tiny dots below and feeling just for a split second the thrill of distance. He is always far away from Gotham’s daily life-- fifteen miles away in the Manor, or eighty floors above in his office, or prowling the rooftops-- but he never feels it so vividly or so euphorically as when he can see it.

It can only ever last for a moment, though; gravity and pain force him to land, and quickly.

He alights in the space behind a gargoyle, glancing at it appreciatively in greeting. His ancestor’s voice echoes in his head: “A bulwark against the godlessness of the wilds--” that was what Gotham City had been built to resemble, with high neo-Gothic walls to block out evil spirits and snarling gargoyles to scare them away. With its perpetual dour frown below glowing white eyes and tall, pointed ears, Bruce’s true face fits in well among his stone colleagues. 

Sometimes he feels more stone than flesh himself. Other times, though-- now-- reality intervenes to disillusion him. Stone doesn’t bleed. 

He starts to shuck off his armor, wincing at the renewed flow of blood now that the wound is free of its confines. He’d put Joker away with unusual ease, but Joker’s not the only escapee; Poison Ivy, armed today with purple thorns and a very, very bad mood, took a chunk out of his side while he’d been getting a civilian to safety, and now that everyone is back where they should be he can’t ignore it any longer.

The wound dries up slowly, even though he applies careful pressure with his fingers, but once the blood has slowed to a languid trickle he begins to work. There is a small first-aid kit in his utility belt; his stitches are efficient and practiced, as is everything else he does, and before long he has the wound closed. It’s not as neat as when Alfred does it-- that’s another thing missing from this untimely excursion-- but it’ll do. He bites off the thread, covers the stitches with a bandage, and shoves himself upright. 

He takes a look down at the city, because he has to pretend to himself not to be swaying with the blood loss, and spares a moment to nod goodbye to the gargoyle. 

Everything hurts more now that he has looked at it, touched it with his hands. When it was just pain, he could manage not to think about it. Now a step forward pulls at the wound; the leap off the building is excruciating, and he opens his earpiece to take his mind off it. “Penny-One.” 

“Sir.” Alfred is always quick to respond, and his crisp diction is always a comfort. “May I expect you home on time for dinner?”

“Unless you can see any stragglers still at large.” If there’s a tinge of hope in Bruce’s voice, neither of them mention it. 

Alfred pauses, and Bruce can hear him searching and pecking very slowly on the Bat-Computer. He does this, Bruce is very certain, on purpose to be infuriating. “Nothing the police cannot handle on their own, sir,” Alfred reports. “Master Dick will likely appreciate your company at dinner.”

“I’ll be there.” Bruce lands, more heavily than usual, atop Wayne Tower, and hesitates in front of the hidden entryway to his office. “You’re sure there’s nothing else to do out here?”

“Very sure, sir.” 

Bruce sighs and begins to sneak into the building. This is always dicey, especially with a fresh injury-- he prefers to begin and end these outings in the Batcave-- but he manages it, emerging in his office and heading for his bathroom. 

“You are expected in fifteen minutes for an interview,” Alfred adds, offhand, “as I am sure you remember.”

Bruce had forgotten, and they both know it. He starts to strip off his armor, already resigned to spending the rest of his afternoon giving answers nobody cares about to questions that matter even less-- but he has to put up at least a token protest. “Of course,” he says. “Any chance of rescheduling?”

“You’ve already rescheduled once.” 

The reporter from earlier, Clement or Claude or something. Bruce gives a long sigh, and ignores the responding breath of laughter. “The blame’s on the _Planet_ if I’m home late, then,” he says. “Tell Dick that. It’s not my fault.”

“I’ll convey the message, sir,” Alfred promises, consummately amused, and then closes the channel.

Out of the suit, he stashes it under the sink and scrubs off hastily, sponging the blood off his chest and rearranging what Dick affectionately calls cowl-hair into Bruce Wayne’s accustomed floppy elegance. The transformation is easy enough, a matter of posture and pitch and letting his eyes cloud over with tedium and affected rich-boy charm, but he can’t look at himself once it’s complete, gaze firmly on the floor as he leaves the bathroom and goes in search of Clay Kemp. The sooner he starts this unpleasantness, the sooner he can finish it.

* * *

Bruce is not the only one who doesn’t want to be here. He can see that immediately, though he hides it better from Kent than Kent does from him. He squirms in his seat, fiddling with his pen and notebook; he won't meet Bruce's eye; there is sullen irritation in the downward curve of his mouth. Could be nervous-- he's young, probably new to the job--or the earnest type, maybe, annoyed at the indignity of a celebrity-interview puff piece. That tracks with the analog notes-- he catches a glimpse of shorthand, which means either a real journalism nut or a Luddite. Bruce would wager both. 

Bruce could sympathize with that. He's got bigger fish, too, after appearing in his evening wear so early in the afternoon-- his wound still twinges, for one thing, but for another all he wants is to finish addressing the fallout and plugging the leaks that allowed the escape in the first place.

He wonders if perhaps Kent saw through his mask somehow on that rooftop-- he'd seemed so solicitous and starstruck earlier, something must have changed-- but he dismisses the thought immediately. Even if it were possible, Kent had been too shaken to connect those dots. He's curious about that unbreakable grip, but that kind of strength could just as well come from a lifetime of farm work. No reason to catastrophize.

The interview proceeds at a snail's pace, about as unremarkably as it possibly can. Kent is wooden and impassive, and Bruce is still too much in his own head about the attack to come up with any scintillating sound bites. By the end of it Bruce's mind is practically numb.

“That about wraps it up.” Kent finally flips his notebook closed and begins to repack his work bag. “Except that I wanted to apologize.”

Bruce has also been collecting his things-- the evening twilight is slowly sinking over the city, and he'd like to get home to Dick before nightfall. He tips his head up, arranges his features into a quizzical expression. _Apologize for what?_

“I thought it was rude, earlier, when you said you couldn't meet me,” Kent tells him. “I hadn't heard about the breakout.”

“You're apologizing for thinking I was rude?”

Kent stammers, hunches in on himself. “I misjudged.”

At this Bruce can't hold back a snort, and his amusement only mounts when Kent looks oh-so-wounded by it. "You'll do that again, kid. Errare humanum est. Don't worry about it.”

Kent bristles at the condescension, breathes deeply, and soldiers admirably on. “I meant-- it's nice of you to still meet me, even if it's not at our agreed-on time. You must be swamped.”

“I do try to keep my word every so often,” Bruce says, wryly. “As though I'd let some jokester get between me and my public.” That ought to make up for the Latin.

"I believe he calls himself the Joker," Kent tells him, mouth a stern line, eyes withering over his glasses. "You seem," Bruce watches his jaw tighten, "pretty flippant, considering there's been an attack on your employees, in your building. Do you care to comment at all?" He opens his notebook again, flipping to a clean page.

"The company's providing for those affected." It will, anyway, once Bruce has time to get any actual work done-- but the evening stretches out before them and this conversation desperately needs euthanizing. He waves one hand, gives Kent permission to move on. "The PR people probably have a press release on the web site already."

Kent's frown deepens. "So you won't comment?"

He's refused the bait, so he's not looking for this to be easy-- which is interesting. Bruce leans into the entitled insouciance. "Must I?" He shrugs, dripping exaggerated bemusement. "If you insist. How's this: we at Wayne Enterprises," he pauses, pursing his lips, "are deeply sympathetic to those who suffered a mild cough in the gas attack this afternoon. We are working hard to support them and help them recover from this act of senseless violence. What do you think?" he wants to know, smiling wryly. "Should we tack on a 'thoughts and prayers?'" 

"Mr. Wayne!" There's the outrage Bruce wanted. Definitely the earnest type, then; this is a far cry from the monotonous drone during their interview. Kent snatches off his glasses-- Bruce is captured by the luminescent blue of his eyes, but shakes it off quickly. "People were--"

"Nobody was injured," Bruce cuts him off. "A few people went down the street to Gotham General for panic or shock, that's all. The escapees are back in custody, and the building is intact. Everything is fine."

"No thanks to you," Kent retorts, shifting forward in his seat. "Or the police! The Bat did all that! Do you really not have anything substantive to say about how a vigilante had to intervene and recapture the dangerous mental patients you were responsible for detaining?" He stammers, just a little, trips over the string of polysyllables like he's not accustomed to hearing his own voice sound so forceful. His cheeks burn red, and so do the tips of his ears, and his hands are shaking. It's almost cute.

"I'm a philanthropist, Mr. Kent, not a jailer," he says, letting some of that exhaustion seep into his voice for a facsimile of disinterest. “I don't have anywhere near as much control you seem to think.” In fact he has a lot to say about it, and a number of countermeasures planned, because he is not an apathetic moron; what he's missing is a desire to explain all of that to Clark J. fucking Kent from Nowhere, U.SA., whose voice has barely finished breaking and who is decidedly not sticking to the list of editor-approved softballs the _Planet_ sent the week before.

Kent has been talking for a while by the time Bruce bothers tuning in again. "--while the police department _your_ Foundation funds and supports waited outside the building! Did nothing! And you won't accept responsibility?!"

“I won't accept blame,” he insists, startling himself with the rasping of his own voice. “Policing procedures for costumed criminals are still at the bleeding edge of the discipline--” he has to cut himself off, jaw tightening. Kent is staring at him, and he understands why. He's fielded similar questions before-- in a city like Gotham, there's always some crisis to answer for. Usually he can play dumb, but something about Kent sets him off, cuts through his masks and facades and gets right to the quick of him. “The _Planet_ isn’t reporting on this. You don’t need this comment.”

Kent misses a beat, looking like a derailed train with puppy-dog eyes. He glances down at his glasses in his hand, surprised, as though he hadn't realized they'd come off; it takes him a moment to cram them back on his face. “I-- no.”

“The _Gazette_ probably won’t even report on it,” Bruce continues. “It was a minor attack with no casualties.” 

Kent stares into his lap, nodding. “You’re right,” he admits, subdued. “I-- I’m sorry.”

Bruce's annoyance vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared. Kent is barely more than a kid, and he probably hasn't conducted many interviews, and he's not wrong about anything but the facts. The outrage was easier to watch than this.

And maybe he's spoiling for a fight just a little bit, after ninety minutes of rehearsed back-and-forth about a project he's not even involved with. “Where do you think you're going?”

The words arrest Kent in the middle of getting to his feet, halfway packed. He freezes. “I was just--”

“Let's have this out,” Bruce says, and stands up. “You drink coffee?”

“Y-- yes?” Kent looks terrified. “Why--”

“There's a coffeeshop on the first floor. Come on.” Bruce leans on the door and Kent slides through ahead of him. “You were saying something about how I'm personally responsible for all the failings of the police department?”

He watches, satisfaction building, as Kent tries and fails to swallow his objection-- whether it's out of anxiety or politeness Bruce can't tell. The argument bubbles up slowly, but before too long it boils over, just as Bruce expected. “Mr. Wayne,” he insists, whirling around to face him, “that's a complete misrepresentation of my point--”

* * *

When he isn't knocking hot coffee into his own lap or tripping over his words, Clark Kent makes for a halfway-decent conversationalist. Any other day Bruce would be kicking himself, frantically scrambling to retain his cover personality-- but today, somehow, he needs this. 

The argument, paradoxically, has relaxed them both-- Bruce has lost his tie and undone a few buttons, Kent's run his hands through his hair enough to dislodge its gel. His face is beautifully flushed, his eyes glow with passion. He's sitting so close that he's practically on Bruce's side of the table, their knees just touching, the better to look at sources for their argument on Kent's laptop. 

"My wealth can't obligate me to run society,” Bruce insists, tapping the table between them. “You seem to think this country is an aristocracy. Democracy doesn't do it for you? You don't think the city should have some say in its own municipal affairs?” 

“You're still misrepresenting my argument!” Kent has to remember to be nervous and mild-mannered; if Bruce riles him up enough, he forgets to blush and stammer. Confidence, Bruce can't stop himself from thinking, looks good on him. 

“If you'd express it better maybe I wouldn't!” 

Kent gestures with his glasses, just barely missing his drink. “I'm not saying you have to run anything, Mr. Wayne, I'm just saying you need to be a little more responsible for where your money goes! When the police just stand there and don't do anything about an asylum breakout, you have to see that that's a problem!” 

Bruce has lived through this argument before. Normally he can swallow his irritation-- he knows, after all, that he did something about it, that he returned all the inmates before too long and protected Gotham from any casualties. And he also knows that he funnels too much money into the city for irresponsibility and corruption to be completely avoided. But he cares about Kent's opinion, for some reason. He can't just walk away. “What makes it my job to do anything about it?” he demands, a little amused. It is his job, of course, though not necessarily in the way Kent assumes. “We've got elected officials, and doctors, and criminal justice experts--” 

“I don't know how you can think this way!” Kent tells him, shaking his head vehemently. “With a hero like the Bat in your city--” 

“The Bat!” Bruce echoes, laughing, and then laughing harder at Kent's expression. “You can't be serious!” 

Their debate persists until Kent, perhaps having gone too long without an episode of clumsiness, gesticulates explosively and knocks his second coffee of the night all over Bruce. 

There is a flurry of wind and motion-- the coffee, in spite of its freshness, is not boiling but somehow ice cold. Bruce is practically smothered with napkins before he can react. Where did all these napkins come from? "I'm so, so sorry, Mr. Wayne," Kent fusses, hands hovering helplessly in the air. "Are you all right?" 

"You didn't order an iced coffee, did you?" He tosses what is possibly a chunk of coffee frozen solid onto the table, dabbing carefully at his shirt and covering a small but growing bloodstain with his hand. The cold shock and his startled reaction must have reopened the wound-- he wouldn't ordinarily care much about a little spillage, but this means he will need to make an exit, and soon. "You should talk to the waiter." 

Kent breathes an out-of-place sigh of relief, but shakes his head. "I don't want to make a fuss, it's fine. It's for the best it wasn't hot, right? Are you okay?" 

"I'm freezing, but fine. Should probably go change my shirt," Bruce says, with a rueful smile. "I didn't realize how late it was. Do you need a car to take you back to Metro?" 

Kent shakes his head, nonplussed. "No, no, thank you. I took the train. I'll be fine." 

"If you're sure." Bruce gets to his feet, carefully positions his bag in front of the spreading stain. "Give me your phone." 

"My phone?" Kent hands it over-- entirely too trusting-- and Bruce keys himself in as a contact, giving Kent one of the numbers he actually checks. "What are you doing?" 

Bruce would laugh at his astonished expression if it wouldn't have pulled at his stitches. "Stealing your phone," he deadpans. "Sorry, Kent, this has all been a ruse." He hands it back, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as Kent stares uncomprehendingly at the screen. 

"Is this--?" 

"My personal number. I do want to continue this," Bruce says-- truthfully, much to his own astonishment. He's rarely particularly invested in anything Bruce Wayne does-- but this argument, or perhaps the man he's having it with, has captured his attention. "If you think throwing a drink at me is going to distract me from your high-handed Gospel of Wealth bullshit, you couldn't be more wrong." 

"It's not! You have a responsibility--!" Kent mounts a protest, spluttering, but cuts himself off at Bruce's amused expression, looking at the phone. "Right. I'll-- I'll text you." 

"Do." Bruce is almost reluctant to leave, but the blood loss will pose a serious concern soon enough. Sparing a last glance at Clark, still dazed and confused, he hurries out of the café and out to his car. 

He drives himself, usually, but the situation seems to call for a chauffeur. Driving while bleeding, he thinks, is probably about as bad as driving while tipsy. 

The ride home is spent trying and failing to avoid small chat with the driver. They exchange pleasantries and anecdotes about their kids, Bruce's teeth increasingly clenched against the pain, until finally-- finally-- they pull into Wayne Manor's carriageway. Bruce overtips as though to pay for his obvious eagerness to leave the conversation. 

He is forced to drop his briefcase, as soon as Alfred lets him into the house, because Dick takes a flying leap at him and he is obligated, by custom if not by law, to catch him and swing him around. "I know I'm late," he says, before the boy can castigate him. "And I'm afraid there's more bad news."

* * *

Bruce had anticipated having to curtail their patrol that night, in deference to his wound-- but Alfred refuses to permit them to patrol at all, insisting that Bruce must rest and that the wound needs time to heal properly. Dick was already annoyed at Bruce's tardiness arriving home, but this proves too much for his patience. Bruce reads Dick two extra chapters of _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ , and gives him whipped cream in his nightly cocoa, but the boy is still too annoyed with him to wish him goodnight, and he resigns himself to making pancakes in the morning.

Bruce cannot cook to save his life. He isn't sure how he makes pancakes-- it's something like an innate skill, one he inherited from his mother. They're different every time, but even he has to admit that they're always artwork. It is sometimes the only offering that can make Dick stop with the silent treatment.

Displeased that Dick is displeased with him-- Alfred's unreasonable dictates are hardly his fault-- he stalks down to spend the evening in the Batcave, logging old casework and servicing the Batmobile and sharpening batarangs and generally tending to all the little things that usually fall through the cracks. He loses himself in it; alone, there is no need to slow down for anyone else's sake, explain what he is doing or play dumb for an audience. He adores teaching, and he's made his peace with Brucie, but working at his own pace for once is a refreshing break; almost as good as patrol, for the way it lets him feel like himself and reminds him of his own capabilities. He'd like to keep it up through the evening, but the blood loss and the stress of the day catch up to him eventually. Words start tripping over themselves on the computer screen, and his vision dims, and everything starts to feel heavy. He props his head up on one hand, tries to keep his eyes open, but it proves to no avail.

He startles awake to the sound of Dick clattering down the Batcave stairs, Alfred following at a sedate pace behind him. "Good morning, sir."

“Hey, B,” Dick says, plonking a conciliatory cup of coffee down by Bruce's elbow and resting one hand briefly on his shoulder. Bruce nods up at him gratefully, blinking sleep out of his eyes and cold hands around the coffee mug. Seems pancakes won't be necessary after all, he thinks, satisfied-- but Dick's next question startles him out of it. “Did you mean to stay down here all night?” 

Bruce pauses mid-sip, brows furrowing. A glance at his watch reveals that it is, in fact, well past six in the morning-- when he looks up, there is Alfred, arms crossed, eyebrows tilted expectantly. It never fails to astonish him how, after all these years, and in spite of all he has become, Alfred stubbornly retains the capacity to turn him into a mere misbehaving child with nothing but a severe look. “I. Meant to,” he lies through his teeth, much to Dick's amusement; Alfred looks at him, eyebrows arched, knowing. He's foolish enough to assume that might be the end of the interaction, at least until Alfred speaks up again. 

“I hope this proves, if nothing else, that working at the expense of your rest is unlikely to prove of any use.” 

“I didn't--” 

Alfred holds up one hand, and Bruce falls silent, sighing. “You are,” Alfred continues, “in spite of your best efforts to the contrary, still only a man. You must rest. _Properly_. In bed.” 

“Think about the example you're setting for your ward,” Dick adds, very earnestly. Bruce can't keep a straight face at that, disguising his amusement behind his mug. 

He can't argue with them-- he wants to, wants to tell them that transcending his own humanity has been the point of all this, that he isn't going to submit to his own flesh without even an _attempt_ at resistance, but neither of them would take him seriously for a second. It's the bane of Bruce's existence, but no man remains a hero to his valet (or his Robin). They'll accept his leadership in anything relating to the mission, but they're both too sensible to agree that the mission matters more than his health. 

He supposes he prefers that to the alternative, since they both stand to inherit, but it doesn't make it any less inconvenient. 

“I can rest properly in my grave,” he tells them, eyebrows climbing, turning resolutely back to the Bat-Computer. 

He can practically hear two pairs of eyes roll in sync behind him. Really, it's becoming impossible to brood in this household these days; sulking, languishing, and general despondency are all also on the decline. At this rate he'll have to start thinking about things normally, and that will never do. 

“Sir…” 

“I mean it, Alfred.” Bruce crosses his arms. “The work needed doing, and I was prevented from patrolling--” 

“I told you not to patrol because you needed to rest.” Alfred is, as always, infuriatingly reasonable. “You completed very little work last night, and you will suffer for sleeping in this position."

Alfred's right. Bruce hates to admit it, even to himself, but he can already feel his bones creaking. "You--” 

“--weren't the only one prevented from patrolling, either,” Dick points out. “You don't see me pulling stuff like this. I'm gonna be pissed if we have to miss it again tonight because of you.” 

“It's one stab wound! I haven't died, I just slept badly,” Bruce insists, gesticulating incredulously. “I'll be perfectly able to patrol tonight.” But he can already tell his words are falling on deaf ears-- the argument isn't proving anything, and he can see the injunction against going out that night brewing in Alfred's head. So he yields, sighing and turning around, face resigned. “I'll take a nap this afternoon,” he offers, hands up in surrender. “Sleep through a meeting or something.” This impresses neither of them. “And I'll eat lunch.” 

Alfred mulls it over for longer than cBruce would like-- for a moment Bruce fears he will have to negotiate-- but ultimately nods. “I will know, Master Bruce, if you have shirked your obligations.” 

Bruce tries to exchange a long-suffering look with Dick, but Dick has no sympathy for him. “He'll know, B. _I'll_ know. You better get that nap in.” 

“I don't know where Robin came from,” he mutters into his coffee. “We should've called you Mother Hen.” 

“Yeah, well, _jackass_ suits you way better than Bat,” Dick retorts, and swats him on the back. “Come on, Alfred said you'd make pancakes.”


End file.
